Why Copenhagen doesn’t matter

John Mikler, The University of Sydney

For its role in raising global consciousness on the emerging crisis
of climate change the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol was an historic
moment, heavy with symbolism. So was Australia’s ratification of
Kyoto, finally, in Bali in late 2007. Symbols matter, the codification
of widely held beliefs in formal agreements matters, and so too does
discussion aimed at reaching such agreements. Yet it is important to
know when action rather than symbolism should be more important, and
therefore to question whether talkfests such as the United Nations Climate
Change Conference to be held in Copenhagen in December matter for finding solutions to
mitigate the impact of climate change.

Events like Copenhagen are given
greater status than they deserve.

The conventional wisdom is that Copenhagen is important because global
problems require global solutions, and we are told often enough that
there is no more global problem than climate change. Therefore, all states,
all societies, all corporations, and indeed every man woman and child
on the planet must be part of the solution to it. As the problem is so
ubiquitous, so must be the solution, and therefore a ‘result’ from
Copenhagen is the next crucial step in achieving it.

This perspective is counter-productive. It is largely because climate
change is framed in these terms that events like Copenhagen are given
greater status than they deserve. While we focus on the meeting, and
what will no doubt be a disappointing outcome however it is spun, opportunities
for really addressing perhaps the most serious threat to humanity and
the planet are being sidetracked. The global problem of climate change
requires national solutions in the form of action by a handful
of key states that are both the source of the problem and capable of
finding solutions to it.

THE CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: WHAT MATTERS?

The conventional wisdom is that when problems are global, international
agreements between states and non-state actors are what matter, not decisions
taken at the level of the nation state, let alone sub-state levels. Related
to this is a belief that size matters: international agreements and international
organisations are judged by the number of their signatories and members.
The rationale behind this is that there is a ‘logic’ of collective
action which dictates that one shirker, or ‘free rider’,
will lead to collective ruin. This belief is held by those who embrace
a rational choice perspective of the world, such as mainstream economists,
and underpins much analysis in international political economy and international
relations. Adherents define actors’ motivations in terms of individualistic
self-interest, and this gives rise to familiar arguments along the following
lines. Because every state represented at Copenhagen has an incentive
to free
ride on
the
good efforts of others, and thereby derive benefits that others have
denied themselves, they will always be tempted to do so. Each has an
incentive not to abide by any agreement they strike, or to find ways
of avoiding an agreement in the first place. This is one reason why climate
change is said to be such a ‘diabolical’ problem by Professor
Ross Garnaut (2008): ‘any effective remedies lie beyond any act
of national will, requiring international cooperation of unprecedented
dimension and complexity’ (p. xviii).

Framing the threat of climate change as a global collective action problem
seems to be supported by observation. The United States has said that
there is little point in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol if large, rapidly
developing countries such as China and India do not commit to substantial
cuts in their emissions. But China has said that it is reluctant to make
such a commitment unless industrialised countries like the United States
do so first. Without such big emitters on board, the rest of the world
seems to have made only marginal progress in limiting emission increases,
let alone delivering reductions. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions only
decreased by around 4 per cent between 1990 and 2006 across all Annex
1 (that is, industrialised country) signatories to the Kyoto Protocol
(United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, n.d).

The prevailing way of casting
the problem risks making it unsolvable.

Framing climate change as a collective action problem might also explain why
the Chair of the Australian Government’s new Australian Carbon
Trust, Professor Robert Hill, declared at the US Studies Centre’s
2009 Summit in June that, by comparison to Copenhagen, negotiating the
Kyoto Protocol had been ‘easy’. This is because only the
rich countries were involved in making commitments. Now we need to get
the poorer ones to do so as well, otherwise there is little likelihood
of industrialised countries like the United States making further commitments.
In short, when an effective agreement is defined as ‘one in, all
in’, agreement seems worthless unless all countries make strong
emission reduction commitments. Hence the focus on Copenhagen as a crucial
and diabolically difficult event. If a global agreement on emission reductions
and how to deliver these cannot be hammered out by all states, big and
small, industrialised and developing, a crucial opportunity will have
been lost. Yet, the more parties added to the negotiations, the more
difficult it will be to reach an agreement between all of them.

WHAT REALLY MATTERS

This way of casting the problem of climate change risks making it unsolvable.
The problem seems so intractable and so complex that it is almost easier
to throw up ones’ hands and declare it all too hard. How many states
must agree? All of them. That’s a big ask. However, I suggest three
reasons why only a few key states actually matter.

First, those who say that countries like Australia don’t matter
are to some extent correct; not because they remain unreconstructed climate
sceptics (although some no doubt are), but because Australia accounts
for such a small proportion of global CO2 emissions: a mere
1.4 per cent. Australia’s emissions pale by comparison to the six
countries that emit more than one billion tonnes of CO2 per
annum: China, the United States, India, Russia, Brazil and Japan. Together,
they account for 49 per cent of global emissions. If we add the European
Union, because it makes environmental laws and policies for its member
states on a regional basis, and count the other members of NAFTA along
with the United States, then five countries and two regions account for
68 per cent (International Energy Agency 2008, pp. III.43–47).
Clearly, what matters for really tackling climate change is largely not
an agreement among all the countries of the world, but action within
and among the states and regions that are responsible for over two thirds
of global emissions.

Second, although Australia’s own emission reductions may not be
critical, its role as an exporter of fossil fuels and other resources
is. Australia’s largest export sector is minerals and fuels, and
our top three trading partners are China, Japan and the United States
(Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 2008, p. 21). Indeed, the Minister
for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, called Australia ‘a
global energy superpower’ upon signing a A$50 billion deal to sell
gas to China on 18 August 2009 (Australian Government 2009). Therefore,
the contribution a country like Australia can make to addressing climate
change does not predominantly hinge on being part of solving some grand
global collective action problem. What matters is that key countries
such as China stop demanding what we export to them in such volumes.
This may not be good news for Australia in the short term, and we should
not expect to hear such a policy position from the mouths of any of our
politicians! Yet, for mitigating climate change this is Australia’s
inconvenient truth.

Global effects are not created
nor felt randomly, and not shared equally.

The third reason is largely a moral one. A global solution is the aim
at Copenhagen, but the data on emissions demonstrates that climate change
is not a placeless phenomenon. As authors such as Linda Weiss (2003)
have long argued, the places where global effects originate, and where
solutions are to be found, still fall within national boundaries. Global
effects are neither created nor felt randomly, and they are not shared
equally. While all nations will suffer the impact of climate change,
some are creating it (for example, large industrialised countries like
the United States, and rapidly industrialising ones like China), and
some will feel its effects more severely while having done little to
create it (for example, Bangladesh and Pacific island countries). Inflating
finding solutions to climate change to the global level, and thereby
conflating its national and regional sources with its global impact,
may simply maintain the status quo: poor countries stay where they ‘belong’,
so industrialised countries can get on with business as usual. If the
global ‘solution’ is to establish a global market where the
right to emit is bought and sold, the result will be that those who can
afford to purchase the right to keep polluting will do so from those
who would like to but cannot afford it.

WHY SHOULD STATES ACT IN THE ABSENCE OF A GLOBAL AGREEMENT?

International agreements are all very well, but if a handful of key
states and two regions are the main emitters of CO2, then
something much less than a global solution is required. Instead,
domestic and regional politics may be more important in finding real
solutions. But why should these states act?

If we step outside the frame that defines collective action problems
in terms of a narrowly defined conception of rational self-interest,
it is clear that there are incentives for states to act unilaterally,
and in the case of states that belong to regional groupings such as NAFTA
and the European Union, regionally. Over a decade ago, Michael Porter
and Claas van der Linde (1990 and 1995) demonstrated that environmental
inefficiency is a sign of economic inefficiency. Rather than seeing a
world beset by economic versus environmental trade-offs, they pointed
out that the economic and environmental successes (or failures) are often
mutually reinforcing. More than this, competitive firms that aim to meet,
or exceed, the standards of states that are regulatory leaders receive
a first-mover competitive advantage ‘as other regions, and ultimately
other nations, modify regulations to follow suit’ (Porter 1990,
p. 648). It follows that so do the states with the strictest regulations.

Addressing climate change requires
national solutions.

A case in point is the US car industry. When the United States introduced
environmental regulations in the 1970s, the US car industry cried that
the economic costs of the environmental regulations would drive it out
of business. It had some lobbying success with this viewpoint, as fuel
economy regulations were actually weakened in the 1980s. In the 1990s,
the industry joined and funded lobby groups such as the Coalition for
Vehicle Choice in the United States, and international lobby groups such
as the Global Climate Coalition and the Climate Council. These consistently
lobbied governments against emission controls to reduce greenhouse gases,
again on the basis that the result would be severe economic impacts (Beder
2002). Yet, nobody would say that the current woes of firms such as General
Motors and Chrysler are a result of them being too green! If firms that
avoid seizing the environmental initiative do not obviously reap economic
benefits, then the same argument may also be applied to countries. After
all, the environmental degradation wrought by the polluting heavy industries
of the former Eastern bloc countries was a symbol of their economic as
much as environmental inefficiency.

So, there are reasons to be optimistic. Addressing climate change requires
national solutions, and the co-ordination of action between key states,
rather than solving what may be an impossibly large collective action
problem at the global level. Further, we should stop ruling out the possibility
of economic as well as environmental benefits for states and corporations
that take unilateral environmental initiatives.

CONCLUSION

In his recent book, Anthony Giddens (2009) characterises the politics
of climate change not just in collective action terms, but also in terms
of inter-temporal choices. He writes that countries that continue emitting
greenhouse gases at current levels are like a smoker putting off quitting.
S/he chooses to avoid making sacrifices now, in favour of dealing with
the health effects of her/his inaction later. Rather than pinning our
hopes on global solutions, anyone concerned about mitigating climate
change should be hoping that the few big emitters decide to act now,
regardless of discussions at Copenhagen, and regardless of what other
countries decide to do. Otherwise, the inevitable imperative of doing
something will be thrust upon them, and us, in the near future anyway.
When this happens, Australia risks being like a heavy smoker trying to
sell cheap fags (that is, fossil fuels) to tempt ex-smokers. But we are
a lucky country indeed. We are blessed with land in abundance, we are
drenched in sunlight, surrounded by water, and have some of the best
scientists and technical know how in the world. Why wait for Copenhagen
before embracing more sustainable alternatives?

Dr John Mikler is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government
and International Relations at the University of Sydney. His research
investigates the role of transnational economic actors, particularly
multinational corporations, and their interaction with states, international
organisations and civil society. His first book, Greening the Car
Industry: Varieties of Capitalism and Climate Change, has recently
been published (Edward Elgar, 2009).